Chapter 2

The gallery opening ran two hours longer than scheduled.

I stood in the corner nursing the same glass of champagne while collectors circled the paintings like sharks.

My piece sold within the first thirty minutes to some German banker who did not even ask what it meant.

He just saw the price tag and the red dot went up.

By the time I got home it was almost nine and the penthouse was dark except for the kitchen.

I could smell garlic and tomato before I even opened the door.

Vincenzo was at the stove with his sleeves rolled up, stirring something in a copper pot.

He looked up when I walked in and smiled.

"You are late, I was starting to worry."

"The opening went long."

I set my purse on the counter and slipped off my heels.

My feet were screaming and the headache that had started this morning was now a full migraine.

"How did it go?"

"The painting sold."

"Of course it did." He turned off the burner and walked over to kiss my forehead. "I told you it would."

I had worked on it for three months and he had been too busy to visit the studio.

But he always said the right thing.

"Sit down, dinner is ready."

He had made pasta alle vongole, my favorite, with fresh clams and white wine and too much parsley the way I liked it.

We sat across from each other at the dining table and he poured me a glass of wine without asking if I wanted it.

"You look exhausted," he said.

"I feel like I could sleep for a week."

"Then eat and go to bed early, amore."

We ate in silence for a while and I watched him across the table.

He looked so normal sitting there.

Like any husband making dinner for his wife.

But how much of this was real?

"Isabella ."

I looked up.

"You have barely touched your food."

He set down his fork and leaned forward.

"Is it the migraines again?"

"Just a little."

"Did you take your medication?"

I shook my head.

He stood up immediately and came around the table.

His hands settled on my shoulders and he began to massage the tension out of my neck.

"I am sorry," he said quietly.

I froze.

"For what?"

"If I had known…" he paused. "If I had known your health wasn't good, back then I…"

He stopped.

I waited but he did not finish.

Back then what?

He would not have pushed me?

He would have called for help?

I did not ask.

He was silent for a moment, then his thumbs pressed into the base of my skull and I felt my body relax despite myself.

This was what he always did.

He made it impossible to hold onto anger or suspicion because he was always so perfectly attentive.

"You need to rest more, you are pushing yourself too hard with these commissions."

"Go upstairs and lie down, I will clean up," he said.

"You have your meeting."

"It can wait thirty minutes."

I nodded and stood up, leaving my half-eaten dinner on the table.

Upstairs I went to my studio instead of the bedroom.

I could not sleep yet.

My brain was too loud.

I turned on the small lamp in the corner and stared at the blank canvas I had been avoiding for two weeks.

The Russian client had already paid half upfront and was starting to send impatient emails.

But every time I picked up a brush I could not make my hand move.

I sat down on the stool and that was when I saw it.

Vincenzo's phone on the worktable next to my sketchbook.

He must have forgotten it there.

I picked it up.

The screen was black.

He would come looking for it soon.

He never went anywhere without his phone.

I waited.

Five minutes passed.

Then ten.

I heard the front door close downstairs and the sound of his car starting in the garage.

He had left for his meeting.

Without his phone.

My thumb pressed the button and the screen lit up.

His password was my birthday.

He said he set it that way so he would never forget.

The wallpaper was a photo from our honeymoon in Positano.

I was laughing at something, my head thrown back, and he was looking at me like I was the only thing in the world worth seeing.

We looked happy.

My thumb hovered over the screen.

Then, as if my hand was moving on its own, I pressed the home button and scrolled through his apps.

Messages, emails, phone logs, all the normal things.

Nothing suspicious.

I was about to lock the phone when I saw it.

A notes app.

I tapped it open.

The list was exactly what you would expect from someone running both legitimate businesses and criminal operations.

"Meeting with the Albanians, Tuesday 3 PM, bring revised terms."

"Warehouses 4 and 7 need new security systems."

"Isabella 's favorite wine, the one from that place in Tuscany, order three cases."

"Her birthday next month, look at that bracelet she mentioned."

"Her father's birthday, that specific whiskey he mentioned."

Page after page of his life written out in careful detail.

Business, family, me.

All of it looked completely normal.

I felt ridiculous.

What had I expected to find?

A confession?

Maybe he really had changed and  that violent teenager had grown into this careful, attentive man.

Maybe I was the one who needed to let go of the past.

I started to close the app.

That was when I saw it.

At the very top of the list.

Pinned.

A single note with a red star next to it..

The title was just my name.

"Isabella  Russo."

My heart stopped.

The created date was listed below the title.

Three years ago.

September twenty-second.

Ten days before our arranged meeting at the restaurant.

Ten days before he had sat across from me in that restaurant and pretended he did not know who I was.

The rain outside came down at once, hammering against the windows.

My head felt like it was splitting open.

I should stop.

I should lock the phone and put it back and never think about this again.

But my thumb was already moving.

I tapped the note open.

Six words filled the screen.

Isabella Russo the game has begun.